It's possible to do this for all stations. You need to snipe off the sentries for Ares communes and shipyards but that's way easier than taking on all the guards, to say nothing of reinforcements. Even for stations that have their own weapons, it's usually better to just tank that than fight everything; the prime example being Luminous in EP.

I think this gets at a larger issue: the current friendly fire mechanics make it too easy to have lines of fire become cluttered. Defending Point Juno? better hope you kill off enough sandstorms before they get close, otherwise you'll blow up a bunch of centurions too when the two fleets clash. Autons and wingmen are worthless because they (among other things) keep getting in my way. It's actually annoying to have dwarg ships join me when I kill their colonies/masters/fortresses and they die to my fire more than anyone else's. Of course, this can be used against the enemy as well, making it very easy to kill some of the supposedly toughest targets in the game.

It seems the straightforward solution is to make all station guards not able to hit the station, but if enemies are able to fire through friendlies, I think the player should get a break in that regard too. What do you all think?

" F.F.A.S.
Friendly Fire Avoidance System
This is a simple device, when installed on your ship will prevent you from damaging your autons.
This will drastically increase their expected lifespan and promotes more strategic use of them.
It does not affect wingmen (as they are human pilots, not AIs) "

This provides an overlay, if I remember correctly.
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Second :

The Player can not use 'NoFriendlyFire = true' without changing the Sovereign of the Player to match the friendly.
Even Autons and friendly Dwarg have their own Sovs.

The Player is an Independent faction within the game.

Even IF the Player were offered to change Sovs upon an encounter or completion of missions, they would Still be a Single friendly Sov and continue to run with the problem of possibly shooting friendlies of other Sovs.

The one constant friendly faction is an Independent Merchant , however, these Merchants are basically Neutral players in the game unless or until they are fired upon by another faction , including the player, then they are angryAt the source of the offence, but not at the Sov that source belongs to.

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Third :

There is no clear solution in a Multi-Faction universe where friendlies can turn on you and Hostiles can become friendly ......

You just have to be more careful.

Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..

It's mostly an issue with AI. If the Dwarg were programmed to move perpendicular to the line between them and the player whenever he's facing them, it'd be fixed easily enough. Likewise, the Point Juno fleet AI is pretty terrible - they essentially just sit there and occasionally shoot at things that get close.

Transcendence isn't designed for large battles - the combat mechanics aren't set up for it even without the need for a clear shot.

What about having the player always set to no friendly fire, and once something joins your wing, set it to the same sovereign as the player. I believe I've already seen sovereign swapping in the game already, with that CSC mission whey the freighter tries to kamikaze your carrier. Unless that's something different, idk.